Toledo Museum of Art Acquires Katherine Gray’s "A Rainbow Like You"

Toledo Museum of Art

A Rainbow Like You installedin the exhibition Katherine Gray: (Being) in a Hotshop at the Toledo Museum of Art

TOLEDO, Ohio – The Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) has acquired A Rainbow Like You, a glass and light installation by artist Katherine Gray that was featured earlier this year in the exhibition Katherine Gray: (Being) in a Hotshop. A Rainbow Like You is now on display in Levis Gallery as part of the exhibition Global Conversations: Art in Dialogue.

“Katherine Gray uses traditional blown vessels and theatrical lighting to express ideas about the transmission of light through another mode of glassmaking—stained glass,” explained Diane Wright, TMA’s curator of glass and decorative arts. “Often found in houses of worship, light filtered through stained glass is usually transmitted from high above to congregants seated below. Gray seeks to reverse this action and its implications, projecting light from below to create a rainbow as a colorful wall mural, evoking glass’s ability to refract light into its color spectrum.”

Toledo Museum of Art

A Rainbow Like You installedin the exhibition Katherine Gray: (Being) in a Hotshop at the Toledo Museum of Art

Each of the glasses that are placed chromatically on the clear table was blown by Gray and collectively represent various styles from the history of global glassmaking.

A Rainbow Like You also points to the crowded display of glassware found in thrift stores today, which gives greater visibility to the transparent and sometimes overlooked material that is so common to our everyday lives, Wright said.

Based in Los Angeles, Gray is inspired by historic glassmaking methods and forms, especially traditional 19th and 20th century American and European vessels. She is a judge on the Netflix show Blown Away, a glassblowing reality show.

Global Conversations: Art in Dialogue is sponsored by the Ohio Arts Council with additional support from the 2019 Exhibition Program Sponsor ProMedica.

As protests surrounding the death of George Floyd have erupted across the US and around the world, artists have joined their voices in the call to honor his life, put an end to systemic racism, and stop police violence in communities of color.